Many different types of electronic apparatus including television receivers as well as computer circuitry are presently manufactured in the form of a single large etch foiled printed circuit board and associated chips incorporating micro circuits. These chips are normally provided with a plurality of connecting pins which are directly soldered in the circuit board making connections with appropriate etch-foiled circuit paths. In some instances, the chip pins are so designed as to be manually pluggable into receiving sockets and removable therefrom.
Each of the chips themselves are specially manufactured devices which may incorporate literally hundreds of diodes, transistors, gate generators and the like in the form of micro-circuitry. Essentially, a single chip can perform functions which heretofore often required a "roomful" of electronic equipment.
Because the chips themselves are each complex devices, in servicing electronic chassis employing such chips, the usual procedure is simply to determine a malfunctioning chip and replace that chip rather than attempt to diagnose the particular malfunction in the micro-circuitry within the chip. However, even with this type of simplification there is involved a time consuming operation on the part of the servicemen to determine precisely which chip is malfunctioning so that it can be replaced. Where the chip is of the manually pluggable and removable type, the situation is somewhat easier as compared to the case where the chip connecting pins are soldered into the circuit board. In the latter instance, in order to check the various chips, the serviceman must normally unsolder all of the connecting pins utilizing special tools and equipment.